


No one will know the violence it took

by bluebells



Series: Somewhere to Begin [5]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Adam is beyond done, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bonus points for spotting the Mean Girls reference, Castiel just wants to save the world, Castiel/Dean Winchester (background) - Freeform, Dream Sequences, Kevin just wants him to be safe, Light Angst, M/M, Sam and Dean are not on-screen at all and I regret nothing, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-27
Updated: 2018-08-27
Packaged: 2019-07-03 06:11:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15813054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluebells/pseuds/bluebells
Summary: ("I'm sorry. I'm sorry you are who you are and you got mixed up in all of this. I'm sorry you decided to forgive me and I fell for it. I'm staying away. What else do you want me to say?")Adam bites the inside of his lower lip and blinks his vision clear of that borrowed memory. He shakes off the remembered lash between his shoulders of the cold wind on that dark night, the empty street spilling before them. Michael hovering, angry and shaken, uncharacteristically at a loss.Sometimes Adam wonders if Castiel really did him a favour downloading all of that to his brain.





	No one will know the violence it took

**Author's Note:**

  * For [freshfettuccine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/freshfettuccine/gifts).



> This is for those people who still tap me on the shoulder years after this series was first published to share their thoughts and excitement with me. It is never too long after the fact. Thank you for providing the fuel. I hope I can make the time and space not too far in the future for the final part that should wrap all of this up (why did I write myself into an actual continuity?).
> 
> Proceed with the huge caveat that I have not attempted catching up on canon for seasons. I have less than zero idea what is going on except that Lucifer is back -- why? Alas, canon is beyond the scope of this story. A reminder that in this rendition, Michael is the archangel assigned to protect Kevin.

_("I'm sorry. I'm sorry you are who you are and you got mixed up in all of this. I'm sorry you decided to forgive me and I fell for it. I'm staying away. What else do you want me to say?")_

Adam bites the inside of his lower lip and blinks his vision clear of that borrowed memory. He shakes off the remembered lash between his shoulders of the cold wind on that dark night, the empty street spilling before them. Michael hovering, angry and shaken, uncharacteristically at a loss.

Sometimes Adam wonders if Castiel really did him a favour downloading all of that to his brain.

_("What else do you want me to say?")_

How does Michael transition from a psychopathic mass murderer to a man who even _considers_ that he’s at fault? Who pleads with Adam to forgive him? How does Adam even inspire the thought in Michael’s head that he doesn’t want to torture Adam and play with the already fraying threads of his mind?

“It starts with you, Adam,” Castiel unhelpfully reminds him just when Adam thinks the angel has finally given up the cause. “The war turns when you get him on our side--”

They’re three boxes through unloading their supply run in late winter, running up and down the stairs from Sam and the trailer back to their food pantry.

Spring is just around the corner. Adam can taste it in the thaw of the morning, that minuscule difference in degrees that settles on his skin like mist instead of frost. It couldn’t come soon enough. Being cooped up underground is driving him stir crazy with the seasons dragging longer in an beleaguered stream of overcast days.

Adam just has to wonder aloud when this might all end and he can eat some real food again. At least if they had some fresh ingredients, he could cook them a real meal. And somehow the angel contorted that question into the Bigger Picture.

Doesn’t Castiel understand rhetoric?

“Well maybe I can’t, okay? And maybe I don’t want to."

Adam whirls, shoving the box of canned vegetables on the central table of their bunker. A pile of jars pickling sun-dried tomatoes and fruit jostle at the corner. Kevin would be disappointed if they toppled; Adam glares at them until he's certain they won't.

"He’s a _psycho._ He messes with people--he kills them and he _enjoys_ it, speaking from experience.” He throws his hands up in dismissal. “And I don’t want another fucking cent of that guy. I just wanted a normal life helping people, but failing that: a quiet _after_ where I could be with my mom. Since I don’t get that either maybe the least I can ask is people stop trying to shove that fucking maniac down my throat again. And when I say people, I really mean you -- it’s just you, Castiel. I will turn up to your shitty war and keep the kitchens stocked, I’ll oil the gun barrels and do your research, I’ll keep Kevin safe. But stop trying to make Michael and me happen. It’s not gonna happen.”

Castiel stalls at the top of the stairs, arms full of canned beans. His face pulls in contrition, “Adam--”

Adam throws up a hand up signalling the conversation over, mouth terse as he storms off, boots stomping on his ascent of the tiled stair. He’ll feel bad about putting that look on the angel’s face and making Castiel put the rest of their food away by himself, but for now he’s done.

///

One day, the war will end, humans and all other species will have peace, and the archangel Michael will stop invading Adam’s dreams like it’s his regular pit stop. But--dragging his hands down his face in exhaustion, Adam laments--it is not this day.

“Your vessels are no more than marionettes in a storefront: stars and dust collecting memory as you drag yourselves towards death. The oldest of us understand what you really are… we can rearrange your atoms, however we like.”

Michael stands in the open living-slash-dining space of Adam’s motel room with all the grandeur of a self-important, ageless being unaccustomed to sharing the spotlight. Adam doesn’t have the heart or the care to tell him this isn’t the Globe Theatre. Michael’s hand turns on the air, twisting some unseen dial to a design in his mind’s eye. His dark eyes gently thin on his spectator.

“I could unmake you. And make you again. Over and over. Until I was done with you.”

Doesn’t Michael get tired of this?

Slouched against the headboard of his bed and tucked beneath the sheets, Adam draws his knees up with a slow, heavy sigh. “You’ve done that already--down below. Or is ‘the oldest of us’ also the first to forget?”

It’s ten-past-ten, he would really like to get some proper shut-eye. He hasn’t had a decent night’s sleep since he tried to make reparations with the First Nations tribe they pissed off when Adam’s brothers trespassed on a hunt three weeks ago. So many elders and families to apologise to. Things Dean just did not care about.

Michael’s expression loses its bright, faraway glaze, focusing on his former vessel. His mouth curls in a smile. “It didn’t _all_ hurt, if you remember.”

Where is Michael going with this?

Adam blinks back at him, careful not to flinch. He must present only a portrait of tired exasperation.

“Never said I didn’t,” he concedes, and turns his back, burrowing down into his thin cocoon for the evening. It still rails against his instincts to show even a figment of the angel his back -- his subconscious doesn’t know that Michael isn’t really here and bears no real threat against him.

The creak of floorboards make him tense. He shuts his eyes and bites his tongue when the mattress dips with weight.

Michael is not really here. He can’t hurt him.

“Maybe I’ve been trying the wrong approach,” the angel's timbre softens, warm and low. "Too much stick. Not enough carrot.”

Adam refuses to react to the presence radiating heat at his back through the sheets. His fingers clutch a little tighter to the duvet tugged tight around his shoulders.

Michael is not here.

“Good night, Michael,” he mutters tightly in dismissal.

Warm breath stirs the hair above his ear, and years of conditioning tell Adam to remain as still and quiet as death, to wait--wait, hold his breath and pray, wait--

He’s not real. He’s not real.

“I’m coming for you, little Adam,” Michael promises him in a soundless breath. “I’m going to find you. And I’ll make you so glad I did.”

///

“I’m really glad you’re not seeing that vampire anymore,” Kevin tells him when they’re packing the small barrels of rock salt and mountain ash into the back of Sam’s truck.

Adam narrows a look at his not-quite-maybe-friend, and glances around to see who may be in hearing distance. Thankfully, his brothers have disappeared back into the bunker and Castiel….

Adam has stopped caring about Castiel.

“Kevin. Dude.”

He doesn’t clarify that he was never ‘seeing’ Michael; his dignity isn’t that fragile, and he knows what Kevin means: _I’m glad you’ve stopped sneaking away and risking your life to barter with that guy._

Adam doesn’t clarify that since they ran out of sage to ward the places they sleep, Michael has been invading his dreams instead. Well, Adam is the only one who ran out. More was supposed to arrive in the latest stock run but Sam’s supplier didn’t come through. Adam just has to hold out for a few more days. In the meantime, Sam needs it more than him.

Adam may also have failed to disclose this recent development.

It’s just as well. He was getting light-headed from all the blood loss of his face-to-face time with Michael. Not to mention the other reactions the angel inspired from his body the last time they met.

He shoves the memory away, like a dirty sweater kicked to the back of his mental closet.

Adam and Kevin agreed never to speak of it. At least, Adam negotiated for Kevin to hold his tongue in exchange for getting to speak with his mother. Far be it for Adam Milligan to keep a guy from his mom. If Adam had his way, they’d all be home with their moms by now.

Kevin, unfortunately, forgets the exchange was for his silence because his face falls into a soft pout and he keeps talking. “He’s dangerous, you know. He could really hurt you. And you’re my friend. And what if he hurt me?”

Adam sighs under his breath, slamming the tray closed once the barrels are secured. “He’s not gonna hurt _you_ , Kevin. He has to protect you.”

For now, Adam echoes. Who knows about tomorrow? Kevin doesn’t need to lie awake at night from nightmares about the fickle oaths of angels. Kid hears enough about the Order of Dickheads On High from Dean’s daily sermons.

He stills as a thought occurs to him. He considers Kevin with a narrowed eye. “You been having dreams about him?”

Kevin blinks with a small frown of confusion. “No. Why?”

Hmm. “Just checking. They’re known to do that sometimes.”

Kevin peers closer at him, dark eyes frustratingly earnest. “Are you?”

“Nope,” Adam lies and resigns himself as Kevin crowds close, suspicious and worried, their shoulders brushing in their hurry back to the shelter of the bunker. The convoy is locked and loaded for Sam and Dean to go do their hero stuff. Good riddance.

Or, God willing. Adam really has to get the intent straight in his head. Sam and Dean have to survive this. He wants them to fight and come back safe because--

\--If they don’t, that’s one less buffer between Adam and this war.

No! Because he just doesn’t want them to die. He doesn’t want anyone else to die.

“I don’t like leaving you with him,” Kevin says.

“You won’t have to. We’re done.”

“I don’t trust him.”

“And you shouldn’t.” Why does Kevin think Adam still needs convincing? “All angels are the same.”

Kevin’s expression turns troubled. He looks so young when his face twists like that, seeking an olive branch of congruity in this crazy world that’s yawned open beneath his feet. “But… Castiel isn’t like that.”

Adam doesn’t like the angel, but he has to concede the distinction. “All angels who haven’t been kicked out or clipped their own wings, are exactly the same.”

///

Castiel finds Adam a few days later in one of the rare circumstances he’s allowed topside without an escort. Well, it’s a nice illusion. The appearance of Castiel affirms that he is never truly alone.

It’s a nice place, this vantage from the bunker aboveground on the lake. The sun has broken through the clouds of Winter grey, beaming over the calm water and basking Adam in a warmth he tries to draw down into his bones. He slumps on an overgrown tree stump by the shore, breathing deep and listening to the breeze coo through the pines and the water lap at the brambles.

Castiel lowers himself, folding his legs by Adam’s stump and Adam watches the angel’s trenchcoat smear with moss. The effort is noted. Castiel doesn’t often sit.

“I’m sorry if I’ve put undue pressure on you,” Castiel says, careful and halting. He glances up, briefly meeting Adam’s eye and unlike every other dysfunctional fuck in their party, at least Castiel’s contrition comes before the crime. The angel licks his lips, searching the vantage of the lake and the tall pines of the shore on the other side. A piercing cry makes them both look up. A falcon soars by, wings spread wide and high above the treetops.

“Not long ago, I would have asserted you had to do this because it was the only way. But oblivion… brings a certain perspective. I’ve been betrayed, beaten and killed more than most. I think you and your family are uniquely qualified to empathise.”

Adam snorts a laugh under his breath. He flicks a wreath of twigs he braided against his thigh. “You giving me permission not to do the thing I already said I wasn’t going to do?”

Castiel sighs. “I’m sorry, Adam. I was wrong. Before, I didn’t know. We’re all desperate to protect what we care about.”

Dean. It goes unsaid, but the fact he and Castiel are now a thing has changed a lot.

“I used to believe the ends justified the means,” Castiel continues, the soft breeze ruffling his fringe as he gazes out to the lake. “I believe it was sung into our being on creation. And I was ready to be the means, to sacrifice anybody and anything for those ends. But the ends are the same for all of us. Death is coming for all of us. Your brothers and I… we’re trying to help what happens after. And there will still be sacrifices to make, but… it also matters how we get there. I tried the other way. I was fooling myself thinking I had any real control over the outcome. But I can control this: so, if I’ve caused you any more harm in asking you to do this--I’m sorry.” Castiel’s voice lowers, apologetic and gentle. “You don’t have to turn him. Maybe we’ll find another way. Maybe we won’t. But that’s not on you alone.”

Adam stares out at the lake and he can’t quite tell when his vision began to burn and blur _._

A wet laugh chokes out of him and he swipes his cheek when some of those tears escape. He thought he didn’t need any of those apologies, but maybe that was just because he believed they would never come. He feels like his chest has been wrenched open and something black and poisonous has loosened its hold on him.

Castiel really is the exception.

“My brother does _not_ deserve you,” Adam finally says, voice thick, resolutely glaring at the lake. “He’s way too primitive.”

A hand closes around his elbow and Adam looks down. Castiel smiles in understanding, squeezing his arm. Adam swallows thickly and nods back, remembering a time before he knew about monsters and Winchesters, and he might have thrown his arms around someone for sharing something so sincere, but Minnesota was a long time ago.

Everything is different. Even him.

///

_“Fuck me well enough to remember; I won’t need a sex tape.”_

The words reach Adam murky and incomprehensible as he rises from the weight of sleep. Strange noises prickle his ears, familiar but estranged in this context of waking alone in his motel bed, a line of drool smearing against his cheek on the pillow. He raises his head to peer blearily at the white paint peeling from the bathroom door, then the dark curtains still drawn over the windows, not a hint of sunlight breaking through.

What time is it? What’s going on?

_“Relax, baby. Open up for… that’s it. Breathe with me.”_

Wait a fucking minute.

Reality hits him like a shard of ice between his shoulderblades. He whirls in bed, sitting up sharply.

Slumped in the bedside armchair, Michael holds Adam’s most jealously guarded possession above his face as the video plays on that phone: telltale whimpers and grunts fill the room. Adam feels his face flush with panic and embarrassment, all coherent thought flees his mind.

_Fuck, fuck--_

“What the fuck are you doing?” is all he can screech.

Michael doesn’t even glance his way to acknowledge he’s been caught, he doesn’t blanch or flinch at the knowledge he’s watching a sex tape of the two of them. A tape that somehow involves _neither of the two people currently in this room_. He’s probably watched the birth of galaxies and orgies of entire dynasties; this probably doesn’t even blip on his radar.

Adam’s mind spirals to a terrifying possibility: Michael will want to know where this video came from, how this video even exists. He’ll force Adam to talk, and soon enough he will realise that there’s another future Adam is aware of. If he’s discovered the phone, what else had he discovered in its storage?

Adam’s stomach drops. If Michael grows aware of the reality Castiel is trying to forge, will he nullify it entirely?

( _“That’s not on you alone.”)_

A grunt of amusement draws Adam from his mental spiral.

“The way you move, Adam,” the angel shakes his head, posture lazy, shoulders dropped low in his chair. Michael raises an eyebrow, swiping at the phone screen and Adam’s ears burn hearing his counterpart cry out. “I’ve watched this five times and I still can’t believe it.”

That smirk turns on him and Adam flushes all over again, this time definitely in embarrassment--and anger at himself.

He should have known. He should have done something--been more careful about what memories Michael could access through the door and down the hatch of his dreams. Maybe if Adam hadn’t watched the video multiple times himself, it wouldn’t have preserved itself in his memory for crystal clear recollection.

Shame winds hot through his gut. He did this to himself.

The sheets twist as he kneels forward on the bed. He thrusts his hand out. “Give that to me.”

The video abruptly falls silent and Michael pulls a face at it. “Why haven’t you watched to the end? Are you that scared of me coming inside you?”

Adam didn’t think it was possible to blush any harder. He falters at the force of the full-body flush of horror, hot and dizzying. He feels sick. He’s sure his face is beet red, his head is ringing and his heart feels like it will ratchet its own chambers apart. He stumbles off the bed all the same, towards the archangel, reaching for his phone.

“Why would I add to my nightmares?”

Michael frowns gently and keeps him at bay with a raised hand, holding the phone away. The simple touch against Adam’s shirt is enough to make him flinch back. And from the way Michael pauses, studying him, it does not go unnoticed.

“Nightmares?” Michael’s frown turns quizzical. “You looked like you were enjoying yourself.”

“That’s not us!”

“I _know_ that’s not us.”

Michael stands, flooding into his space, almost chest-to-chest. Adam stumbles back, feeling the blood that had rushed to his face abruptly drain elsewhere, heart thumping, hands tingling, priming for a fight.

Michael cants his head, a familiar and dangerous little smile curving his mouth. “But it could be, if you tell me where you are. You’ve thought about it.” Michael studies him closely, eyes glittering in the dim of the bedside lamp. “Haven’t you?”

Adam stares back in shock. Michael seriously isn’t going to ask him where he got that video?

This is all very disorienting.

Misinterpreting his stunned silence, Michael presses on. “Remember? With the power I have, I could unmake you… you remember what it feels like when it hurts.” Michael searches his eyes carefully. “Imagine… _remember._ We can tip it the other way.”

Adam swallows nervously. That knowledge, that muscle memory is the undercurrent of every conversation, every look, every touch that Michael has brushed against him since he stalked across the parking lot of that bar with Adam in his sights.

Their most recent encounter only confirmed it, falling against each other with the delirium of blood loss and a brief inversion of power. Michael’s mouth on his skin, sinking between his thighs.

In the dim of Adam’s dream, Michael’s smile gentles, coy. “If I made you feel good. Rearranging your atoms, I could wreck you from the inside without ever laying a finger on you. Give you so much pleasure, leave you hoarse and slavering, it would break your mind.”

Adam huffs a rueful laugh under his breath and shakes his head.

There it is. Always warping back to control and damage. It doesn’t matter how it happens, so long as Michael gets to enjoy creative and fun ways to unmake him.

Adam’s voice cracks, trembling. “Do you remember... when you weren’t so into breaking people? And... you actually protected me? Down there?”

In the Cage.

That video had disturbed Adam for weeks. At first, he thought it was the obvious revulsion of seeing himself wrapped up in his enemy. He felt sickened and betrayed by his other self, and the unwanted arousal it inspired. But he was most repulsed when he realised beneath it all was a wretched sadness--mourning for what could have been.

Because the way Michael held and sheltered him in that video made him recall when they first landed in the Cage. Their relationship had never been like _that_ , but--

“I looked for you,” Michael reminds him, voice a thick slurry through clenched teeth; one of those involuntary truths. Huh. Adam didn’t even consider if that would still work in dreams. “I took you back _and_ I fought for you, remember?”

“You gave up,” Adam mutters, throat tightening.

Michael has inflicted a lot of hurt on Adam and his family, but this fact aches the most: Michael wasn’t kind before, but the Cage turned him downright cruel.

Adam trembles, fists clenched at his sides. He glowers, unsure what to make of the way Michael studies him, expression softening. “I blame you _and_ your brother. But he’s not the one who won’t leave me the fuck alone now. I fucking hate you. Yeah, you could play me like a puppet; that’s all you’re good for now. But you couldn’t make me feel a genuine thing I enjoyed if it killed you.”

He steps in close enough that he feels the typical heat Michael radiates, the sheer power and energy of his angelic form straining to contain itself in the month’s vessel of choice. One breath too deep would press them together, Adam would feel that heat through the thin layer of his shirt. He doesn’t push his luck, though he very much wants to shove both hands against the angel’s chest and watch him stumble. He wants Michael off-balance, staggering back--

_\--On his knees, nuzzling his smile into Adam’s palm, rumbling pleasure at Adam’s praise (“you did so well”)--_

Adam kicks that memory down the hatch and slams the door shut.

“You’re pathetic, General. I can’t even pity you. Get out,” he growls.

Michael raises an eyebrow. “You’re not fun when you’re sad.”

Adam’s fist flies, but Michael is gone before it connects--and Adam jolts awake mid-swing, tangled in his motel bed sheets.

The sky is paling to a grey sunrise behind his curtains. He is alone.

He thumps the mattress with a snarl and takes a deep breath.

 _Not fun when you’re sad,_ Adam’s mouth twists into a bitter scowl of frustration. _Asshole._

**Author's Note:**

> So I wrote this in one sitting the day after receiving a sweet comment out of the blue from [freshfettuccine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/freshfettuccine/pseuds/freshfettuccine) that just sparked the right idea, but I held off posting it. I thought I could wrap up the second half the very next day and post them together! (No.) In the meantime, please take this with my apologies for its impatient tone because it had almost been ten years since our boy has canonically been left in the Cage.
> 
> Just the other day he was emancipated by the [Team of Hillywood](https://youtu.be/Nsy06n-omrg), and I am extra pleased to have Kevin in this story since Osric Chau was part of that liberation. (Check it out if you haven't already, the entire parody is priceless.)
> 
> [Everyday blog](https://bellsyblue.tumblr.com/) / [Writing blog](http://bellsybuilds.tumblr.com/)


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